Uvongo Days

My mother was concerned about everything…!! She insisted on cooking an array of tasty dishes to “fatten me up” and in case “good food was scarce”…!! Mothers will be mothers…!!

The look on my father’s face explains what he thinks of my planned trip…

I spent time poring over my maps and trying to locate those areas I thought might prove a problem for the limited range of a bike… When I was “tanking it” I could ride for about 300kms before requiring a fuel stop… I identified a few places where fuel might be a problem, and decided I needed an extra “tank”… I bought a 10litre jerry can for spare fuel at a local hardware store. Charmaine found a black kit bag into which the tank fitted perfectly. The only place I could safely attach it to the bike, was on top of the tog bag on the pillion seat.

I felt that the availability of fuel, once I cleared Grootfontein on the road to Rundu on the edge of the Caprivi, could be a problem. Also, according to the map I was using, there seem to be very few fuel stops in the western part of Zambia… I wasn’t too sure about Tanzania, but I had also heard that fuel in Mozambique was a problem in the more remote provinces in the north…

I bought a can of pepper spray, after remembering the one I saw on Denver Biggs’s bike back in Johannesburg. He had occasion to use this once and confirmed that it was a very effective “argument ender”… I sincerely hoped I wouldn’t have occasion to use the damn thing, but neither could I see myself going down with out some form of resistance, if the occasion arose!! If I couldn’t make them bleed, at least I’d make them cry!!  

I washed the bike and added the first flag sticker of my trip, that of Swaziland… I had already added a “Think Bike” sticker to each side of my Top-Box figuring I could spread the word wider than most people were ever going to be able to! I parked the bike under the lean-to in the back garden to dry. Both my mother and sister took turns sitting on the bike, and if anything, the size of it now gave my mother even more reason to worry…

1500km Mandatory Bike Wash!

On Saturday afternoon, I took our dog Jessie, who was staying with my folks for the duration of my trip, for a last walk on the rocks and beach between Uvongo and Manaba. Watching her reminded me of her sister Amber, who we had to have put down a few weeks before… They used to chase the Dassies over the rocks for as long as they could before flopping down exhausted in the back of my pickup… We walked through rock pools, Jessie not hesitating to swim through the deeper ones… Memories of the many times we had spent down here as a family had me choking with emotion at times, and I was thankful that there were very few people on the beach that afternoon…

Later that evening, I called Volke Bachle in Plettenberg Bay to confirm the best route to use to Port St John’s the next day. He has an interest in a lodge on the banks of the Umzimvubu River and had arranged for me to stay there overnight. He also advised that I should avoid the N2 through the Transkei and rather take the more scenic route through to Queenstown and down to Grahamstown, once I got on the road to his house in Plett….

Seemed like a good idea… Time would tell…

Explaining to Jessie that I WOULD see her again…

My sister Charmaine on the “Big Fella”…

I don’t remember too much of that last evening with my folks, except that I went to bed early, and lay awake thinking again about the fact that I had still not heard from my wife and children since they left to spent their December holidays in London… I still had no idea if they had arrived safely, or what they were doing… Then again, they had very little idea of the scope of my plans either… Pride is a funny thing…

I thought about Namibia and the month long trip we made together in July of 2006. In my mind’s eye, I saw the places we had visited and those which I would again be passing through in a few weeks time… I wondered if I should rather avoid going to the same places we had been to, but quickly realized that we had visited so many of the exciting destinations that Namibia had to offer, that a trip through this country would be pointless without seeing them again…

I lay listening to Bruce Springsteen on my I-pod, and one of his songs, “Thunder Road”, struck a chord that would ring in my head for the next few days… With nothing better to do and knowing that sleep was a long way away, I sat up late, toying with the words to suit my own feelings…

“Well I’m no hero, that’s understood,

All the love I can offer is in this beating heart,

There’s a chance I can still make it good somehow…

What else is there to do now…?

Except open the throttle, push up my visor,

And let the wind blow over my face,

With my heart broken open,

These two lanes can take me anywhere…

This might be my one chance to make things real,

I’m taking a chance on this engine and two wheels,

Trying not to look back,

A kind of heaven could be waiting down the track…

The future lies in these two hands,

In the morning I’ll ride out to seek the Promised Land,

It must be lying out there, baking in the sun,

I’ll find it no matter how long I have to run…

Take hold Ronnie… This is your “Thunder Road”…”

© 2008 TBMH